(Top) Anitha Guha and her troupe perform Bharatnatyam and (below) Purnashree Rout and troupe present Odissi on the inaugural evening of Konark dance festival. Telegraph pictures

Bhubaneswar, Dec. 2: The Konark festival dance concert, which is hosted with the gorgeous Sun Temple in the backdrop, started on Sunday evening. The first performance of the evening, however, drew criticism from experts and dance enthusiasts.

The classical dance festival showcased two dance forms on the inaugural evening to which there were mixed reactions from the audience.

Purnashree Rout, Lucky Prajna Mohanty and their troupe from Raipur, Chhattisgarh, presented Odissi in the opening act.

Though the selection of items for their repertoire was interesting, their costume, presentation and choreography lacked elegance and eloquence. The presentation looked pretty ordinary and was criticised by many Odissi dance enthusiasts.

The troupe began with Ardhanareswar, which is based on the spiritual union of man and woman and then went on to depict the age-old timeless devotional poem written for Lord Jagannath by Salabega, Ahe Nila Saila.

Then the artistes staged a few episodes from Ramayan that included Sita’s marriage to Ram, their exile in forest and abduction of Sita. But the depiction did not appeal to dance lovers and members of the fraternity.

“The performance was decrepit and distasteful. We hope the organisers take note of it,” said Dennard de Souza, a classical dance enthusiast from Mumbai. “From selection to execution, everything was disappointing at a prestigious stage like Konark festival. We must react to such low-quality performances,” opined Anshuman Mishra, who runs a dance school in Cuttack.

However, the saving grace of the evening was Bharatnatyam performance by Anitha Guha from Chennai.

Starting off with Suryastakam, an invocatory prayer to Surya or the Sun god, the team also chose to depict Ardhanariswaram — the synthesis of masculine and feminine energy. Their performance was enjoyable. Guha’s dancers also presented a very popular composition of Maharaja Swathi Thirunal’s Bhavayami Raghuramam set to Varnam format in Raga Malika and Roopaka Thalam.

Their programme ended with Thillana in Ragam Kafi on the composition of P. R. Venkatsubrmaniam. The sand art festival also kick started at the Chandrabhaga beach simultaneously. The five-day fest of dance and sand art will continue till December 5.

Artistes such as Illeana Citaristi, Rani Karnaa, Sadanam Balakrishna, Singhjit Singh, Alekshya Punjala and Bichitrananda Swain will showcase Odissi, Kathak, Kathakali, Manipuri and Kuchipudi during the festival.

The programme is being compered by Mrutyunjay Rath and Sadhana Srivastav.

A slash in the budget for this year’s festival had upset the state’s dance fraternity.